Loving One Another At The End of All Things
1 Peter • Sermon • Submitted
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Introduction
Introduction
Will you please open your Bible and turn with me to ? This morning, we are going to study together in a message that I have entitled, “Loving One Another At The End of All Things.” If you don’t have a Bible, you can follow along by looking at the screens in front - the passage will be on those screens. Let’s read together these verses.
Read . Pray.
What would you do if you knew that tomorrow was the last day of your life? What would you do if you knew that Jesus Christ was returning to the world tomorrow evening. How would you live? What would you fill your time with? What would you want to do with those final hours, final seconds of your life?
It’s interesting to think about and hear a person’s answer to such a heart-searching question. Our answer to a question like this reveals a lot, doesn’t it? It reveals what we value most. It may reveal what we regret about life. It reveals what we see as the purpose for our lives, what we should be doing whether we are doing now or not.
This question is one that we might
We know that this is not an uncommon question. Maybe it’s one that you’ve been asked before. It’s certainly one that has been asked by men of God in the past. Martin Luther was once asked what he would do if the end could come today. His response was, “I’d plant a tree and pay my taxes.” Jonathan Edwards once wrote 70 resolutions that he reviewed weekly. One of those resolutions was “Resolved, never to do anything, which I should be afraid to do, if it were the last hour of my life.” These men both pondered the idea of the end of all things.
What you probably noticed is that our passage for this morning begs this very question and, in fact, it tells us the answer to the question. Our passage tells us how we ought to live our lives, knowing that the end is near. This is plain because of the very first verse of our passage. Peter says, “The end of all things is at hand; therefore...” Our attention is immediately drawn in this passage to the end of all things.
What does this verse say about the end? It says that the end “is at hand.” The last days have come. The end is imminent. It is near. But how can we say this? If Peter said this 2000 years ago and the end has not come, was Peter wrong? No, because what Peter is saying in verse 7 is the same thing that is said throughout the New Testament, namely that the last days have begun. Through the ministry, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ the last days have begun. From the time of Jesus’ ministry on the earth, people have been living in the last days.
This is what Paul meant in . He had just described the idolatry of Israel in the time of Moses and the judgment that fell on them, which served as a warning to God’s people forever. Paul said:
Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come.
So we too are people on whom the end of the ages has come. We are living at the end of all things, and Peter tells us how we ought to live. In ways expressed by Martin Luther and Jonathan Edwards, Peter tells us how to live a life pleasing to God at the end of all things. And what does this life look like? A life that glorifies God in the last days is filled with prayer and love.
The central message of these verses is that the aim of the Christian life during these last days is to be prayerful and loving. How should you live tomorrow if you knew that it was your last day on the earth? You should be prayerful and loving. What’s more, since we are living in the last days, this is how we should live every day. This is what Martin Luther and Jonathan Edwards expressed. Why would Luther plant a tree and pay his taxes? Because he, just like Edwards expressed in his resolution, wanted to live every day in light of the end. This is how we are all called to live, in light of the end. And Peter tells us that we glorify God in these last days by living prayerfully and lovingly.
These two pursuits will serve as our outline for this message. What Peter tells us first is that we are to glorify God in the last days by being alert and sober for prayer.
Glorify God In The Last Days By Being Alert And Sober For Prayer
Glorify God In The Last Days By Being Alert And Sober For Prayer
Faithful living during these last days, at the end of all time, involves an alertness and sober-mindedness in prayer. Read verse 7 again:
The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers.
The two verbs “self-controlled” and “sober-minded” are essentially synonymous. Other translations have translated self-controlled as clear-minded. This is how God wants his people to live in the last days. While the nearness to the end may cause some people to lose their minds and act irrationally, we are to be clear-headed and sober-minded.
After all, the end is a time of turmoil for us. We are living as exiles in a hostile world. We experience suffering and persecution. In the midst of such opposition, we must commit ourselves to prayer. We must pray for strength to endure. We must pray for wisdom to walk faithfully in the world. We must pray to reject temptation to compromise with the world. We must pray against the tendency to drift.
We don’t want to drift, compromise, or fall. Therefore we must pray. We should live lives that are full of prayer and dependency on God. There are people still trapped in darkness, there are dangers all around us. Pray for God to act and protect so that He will be glorified through Jesus Christ.
So we glorify God in the last days by being alert and sober for prayer. Secondly, Peter also tells us that we glorify God in the last days by loving one another earnestly.
Glorify God In The Last Days By Loving One Another Earnestly
Glorify God In The Last Days By Loving One Another Earnestly
If the imminence of the end should provoke us to prayer, this imminence should also provoke Christians to love one another earnestly. It’s no surprise that Peter calls us to love, is it? Love is the central characteristic of God’s people. So living in the last days should also be marked by this quality.
Peter emphasizes the importance of this in verse 8:
Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.
In the world full of sin, betrayal, and opposition against Christ we must be a people that earnestly love one another. Commit your life to this priority in the last days. Love one another, earnestly. Do not let the world’s opposition against you cause you to divide, but instead devote yourself to loving each other. We need each other, so we must love one another earnestly.
At the end of verse 8 Peter gives us a reason for the priority of love in the last days, “since love covers a multitude of sins.” What this means is that when we lavish love on one another, when we love one another earnestly, sins and offenses against us are overlooked. It is not easily offended. It thinks the best of others. It forgives when people sin against us. It is not condemning. Love that endures.
Be quick to forgive, don’t hold on to bitterness. Don’t be resentful. Husbands and wives, let love cover a multitude of sins in your home. Church family, imperfect people united to other imperfect people through Christ, let love cover a multitude of sins.
Are you holding onto a grudge from a former offense? Are you bitter toward someone because of the way they offended you. The end is near! There’s no time for that! Instead, love one another earnestly since love covers a multitude of sins. Love covers over the wrongs of others while those who are full of hatred use the sin of others as weapons to attack them. Church family, we must love one another earnestly.
We can cover sins with love because Christ’s love has covered everyone of our sins.
Thankfully, Peter also tells us how we can love one another earnestly. The rest of our verses, verses 9-11 are applications of this exhortation to love. How can we love one another earnestly? By showing hospitality to one another and by serving one another.
Look at verse 9:
Show hospitality to one another without grumbling.
Since the end is near, love one another by showing hospitality. Open your home to each other. Be warm and generous to people, especially to guests. This is what it means to be loving, we share our homes with each other. Think of it, your home is your most intimate space is your home and when we show hospitality to each other we invite one another into our places of intimacy and love. Hospitality is so important that it is a qualification for elders in the church!
Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.
And the Bible says we should do this both for fellow Christians and for strangers. The loving community of the church should be a hospitable community. Look at your home as the laboratory of love. Spend time together with others in your home. Prioritize hospitality. Share what you have with others.
Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.
Incredibly, it is also through hospitality that God often works to transfer people out of darkness. So show hospitality. And, Peter says, do this without grumbling. Peter knows that hospitality is not easy or convenient. It is costly, messy, and exhausting. But love one another and be hospitable without grumbling.
Not only should we love one another through hospitality but we must also love one another by serving each other. Peter says this in verses 10-11:
As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
Love one another earnestly by serving each other. The church that is full of love for one another is a church that is active in serving each other, active in ministering to one another. A church full of love is not a church that relies on the service and ministry of a select few, but a church that is active and eager to serve each other.
We do this because each of us has received a gift. Did you see that at the beginning of verse 10? Peter reminds us all that God has given every person a spiritual gift. You have been given a gift from God. Not only the gift of salvation but as Paul said in , you have been given a gift of the Spirit for the good of the church:
To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.
You have been given a gift to minister to people around you. And you have a responsibility to use this gift to serve and care for others. This is why we see our church gathering as an activity for us all, not just a select few. You should arrive at each Sunday service with an eagerness to serve others. We have grown fond of saying that we want to help others take steps toward Christ.
We help others take steps toward Christ by using our spiritual gifts to serve one another. You have a gift, will you use it to serve others? There are many gifts given to the church, and God wants us to use them in love for one another.
Peter, unlike Paul, does not mention specific gifts in this passage. What he does do, however, is give us two categories of gifts: speaking gifts and serving gifts. Look at verse 11 again:
whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
Some gifts involve speaking the Word of God and some gifts are more focused on serving. Teaching, preaching, prophesying, evangelism, and encouragement are speaking gifts that God has given for the building up of his church. And when we use these speaking gifts, we use it “as one who speaks oracles of God” which means that we speak in according to the Word of God and not according to our own wisdom.
Giving, mercy, and administration are service gifts. We should use these gifts to serve each other. God has given you a gift to express your love for one another and care for each other. As we must serve, not in our own strength but in the strength that God supplies.
This simply means that we live, love, and serve with a dependence on God that, even when we grow weak, weary, and tired, we continue to serve in order to care and love others.
Church family, the end is near. Glorify God in the last days by being alert and sober in prayer and by loving one another earnestly.